“Old fool! Old Fool! This is my hour! Do you not know Death when you see it?”

Gandalf sighed. You ask me to fear death? But I have already died, and been sent back to fulfill my task! How can I still fear the thought of death when I know to what it leads? And this from you, who so feared the thought of death you accepted Sauron’s trap, and thus no longer properly live at all? Is not every second of your existence an exquisite torture of weariness and frustration? You no longer have a true body to rejoice in, nor any hopes or dreams to strive for, nor any loves to make life worth living. Only an existence of slavery under one you loath, with but one power left to you—the power to make others rejoice to be free from the bonds of their bodies.

I rejoice to be able to enjoy as well as envy, to love as well as hate, to laugh as well as curse. And being able to enjoy, to love, and to laugh, I find I do not wish to envy, hate, or curse all that often—if at all!

While you…. Just what makes life such as you know it worthwhile? Why, you do not even remember the name granted you when you began it!

Perhaps it is time for you to let go this shadow-life that you might be reminded just why you once enjoyed living enough to wish not to die and leave that pleasure behind. And perhaps you might also find yourself remembering who you were born to be….

*

And all lifted their heads to listen more closely to the defiant music of horns, horns blown in challenge in the distance! The Rohirrim had come at last!